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Originally posted by Mincer If there is a large emphasis on correctness in the xhtml, should we use the box-model workaround for IE5 in the css? Surely this breaks the rules for css correctness? Is this any better than using a table for layout?

Interesting question. Personally, I am a big fan of CSS workarounds for a couple of reasons. Firstly, I absolutely love semantic markup. The idea of a document that is marked up to mean something (as opposed to being marked up to appear in a certain way) really appeals to me. Secondly (and more practically) you can share a single CSS file between potentially hundreds of pages. Which is better - a markup hack on hundreds of HTML pages or a CSS hack (necessary to make up for a deficiency in a widespread and popular browser) that only appears in one place?

Tables work, reliably, and without me having to worry that on this or that browser, on this or that resolution things will start overlapping or get mixed up.

As most of us speaking in favour of CSS-P make their living out of web design, I don't think any us can afford to build sites that don't work.

Remember that tables have never been a faultless process.

For instance, Netscape 4 wrongly inherits background images from parent tables, struggles with 1px wide cells and won't let you mimic a border by coloring the table differently to it's cells and setting a small cellspacing value.

And mixing tables with CSS in NS4 often creates more issues (in particular with built in margins) than it solves.

The only difference is we've had 5 years to come up with work-arounds and hacks, and they are widely known.

CSS-P technique is no harder to learn, but simply hasn't had the same amount of time to saturate the web development industry.

It's not that I don't want to use CSS-P. I really would like to. But after reading a lot of articles/tutorials I feel more confused then before. I've tried stylesheets but never could get a 'cross browser uniform' result, and I'm not even talking Netscape 4 here.

Please point me to one article or tutorial that explains (nicely and slowly ) how to do 'stylesheets in the real world', and I'll give it another try...

Greetings

Rik

PS: Just an observation: I'm haven't seen CSS-P implemented on Sitepoint either.

We are actually in the early stages of redeveloping SitePoint as I write this. We've done some user testing on the new layout this week.

The current incarnation launched around Novemeber 2000, which is before Mozilla, Netscape 6, IE6 and Opera 6.0 (let alone 7.0) were around, and NS4 was closer to 5%-8% market share. Two years is a long time in web dev.

As for CSS-P articles, a really nice, short, digestible article on CSS-P appeared on ALA this week . Check it out

The article was pretty interesting, but not excactly what I'm looking for.

I would like to find an source (book, article, santa claus... ) that can explain me nicely how to build a stylesheet (including the hacks etc...) that will work for all 4+ browsers on all platforms.

I'm a one man show here, planning on converting a hobby in some extra cash. I want to do things 'right' from the start but I don't have the time or the resources to do a lot of crossbrowser, let alone crossplatform, testing.

If such a resource exists, I'd be truly gratefull if someone could point me in right direction.

I think I'm convinced that, I should have another go at CSS-P before launching my business. I was suffering from a acute case of 'information overkill' but thanks to you guys I'm seeing a bit clearer now.

Thank god for this place. I've been a member for about a week now and I can honestly say that these forums have become a part of my life.

Originally posted by Zoef I would like to find an source (book, article, santa claus... ) that can explain me nicely how to build a stylesheet (including the hacks etc...) that will work for all 4+ browsers on all platforms.

It sounds like you want "CSS: Seperating Content form Presentation" by Owen Briggs and three others, a Glasshaus book. It's absolutely fantastic - it teaches you practically everything you could possibly want to know about CSS and includes an invaluable chapter on getting your CSS layouts to work cross browser (even back to Netscape 4). It is by far the most valuable CSS resource I have found both on or off the web.

"Eric Meyer on CSS" is a great buy as well - it doesn't have nearly as much in the way of cross browser tips (although the free bonus chapters on www.ericmeyeroncss.com do a good job of making up for that) but the book does contain 13 practical projects which introduce a wide variety of clever techniques and creative ideas.

If you can afford both, buy them both by all means. If not, the Glasshaus book has more technical details and is better for cross browser development (but is not nearly as creative or inspiring as Eric Meyer's book).

our responsibility

the webdev community are the only ones that can change the situation they find themselves in. if you continuously code for the lowest common denominator, you ensure that those users will be satisfied with their crappy browser and you will continue to have to write crappy html to make them happy.

of course we have to keep the client in mind, but i say it is our *RESPONSIBILITY* to each other to follow the standards unless there is a special situation.

there is really no excuse for a user to hang on to NN 4.x and the like when there are plenty of *FREE* upgrades available that are standards compliant (or at least closer to it). our responsibility is to educate them on the differences in the product and let them know that they need to upgrade if they would like the web to be displayed as intended on their devices. part of this education may be displaying a message on their screen letting them know why the page you developed is breaking in their browser.